Tracking email opens in Google Analytics

Question

We have tracking in our emails to track clicks back to our site through Google Analytics. But is there a way to track opens? I would imagine I have to add a google trackin

Answer 1

So i'll assume that the email contains a link to your Site. Certainly GA can record how often that link is clicked because clicking the link will open the page in turn causing the function *_trackPageview()* to be called, which is recorded by GA as a pageview.

So as long as that page has the standard GA page tag, no special configuration is required--either to the GA code in your web page markup or to the GA Browser. The only additional work you have to do is so that you can distinguish those page views from page views by visitors from another source.

To do that, you just need to tag this link. Unless you have your own system in place and it's working for you, i recommend using Google URL Builder to do this for you. Google URL Builder is just a web-form in which you enter descriptive terms for your marketing campaign: Campaign Source, Campaign Medium, Campaign Content, Campaign Name. Once you've entered values for each of these terms, as well as entered your Site's URL, Google will instantly generate a 'tagged link' for you (by concatenating the values to your Site's URL).

This URL generated by Google URL Builder is the link that would be placed in the text of your marketing email.